Research and Background Information of Newspapers and Local Newspapers

John Stuart Mill, the well known Utilitarian philosopher also saw no harm in people and the press expressing themselves freely. He said that as long as we are not hurting each other, it can only be a good thing. However, in the case of the News of the World, there was hurt caused and 7 figure payouts have been dished out to compensate families by News International, the news group ran by media mogul Rupert Murdoch who instigated the phone hacking. This is an argument for a reform of the free press, but only in some areas. Most people would dislike to see the day when all media publications have to be sensored; it goes against Western beliefs of freedom and freedom of speech. In a culture that is supposed to be leading the way in terms of human rights, and showing countries like China that our way is the best way forward, we need to decide whether our press is up to scratch or whether it does need a few tweaks.

Despite calls for more limits to the press, there are equal claims that we live in a free society, and that sensoring the press would be a step backwards. In fact, the press was once sensored until the 17th century. One poet and thinker John Milton had previously defended the free press in his 'Areopagitica.' He said "Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties,' which means, in short that he believes we are free to do and say as we wish, tieing in with the human rights issues that surround us today. But it was not only this that Milton had a problem with. It was, at the time against the law to publicly criticise the government or the King, something that would have been frustrating at the time. There are extremist fears that society could dip back into this kind of way of thinking.

More recently, the press has come into dispute following the emerging stories about phone hacking. Several tabloid newspapers' high end journalists were found to have hacked the phones of well known celebrities and murder victims' families to gather information for news stories. The most notable case was that of Sunday newspaper News of the World who had hacked hundreds of phone numbers, including the murdered school girl Millie Dowler. When the news broke, there was national uproar and the paper sent out its last ever issue. It is expected that after the legalities of the hackings are sorted, there will be an inquiry into the free press and it is not unlikely that the logistics of the media we know it could well be changed after hundreds of years.

History of Newspapers

The earliest known form of newspapers originates over 5 centuries ago in Europe, where newsletters would be distributed giving information about things like the weather, wars and other issues of interest to the public.

Historians believe that the first ever newspaper as we know it today was published in Germany, and before long writers were grabbing the attention and imagination of readers by over-dramatising stories, much like the tabloid techniques that can be seen even today.

It is thought that the first newspaper printed in full English was the Oxford Gazette in 1665

With a population obsessed with the internet, and advertising revenue the only thing keeping a website independently alive, local newspapers in particular would naturally find it difficult maintaining their website without newspaper profits. This is why they will often give away freebees to get people into their papers. The Times have recently put a paywall onto their website, charging users £2 a week, notably less than the £8+ it would cost to buy all 5 editions of the weekday newspaper, as well as the saturday and sunday editions.

However, it is not just against each other that they compete against. Newspaper companies try to get people into their actual paper rather than getting the news free from their website.

In the print industry, there are thousands of newspapers to choose from, both local and national. This creates a big competition to get the best headlines, pictures and exclusives on the front page to grab peoples' attention.

This research confirms my hypothesis that more people read local newspapers than many people think. With this comes a great responsibility of pleasing everybody, meaning local newspapers have to run all varieties of stories, not just ones that will suit best certain age groups, be of specific partial political interest or portray certain groups of people in ways in which they are being unfairly represented.

Facts

LOCAL NEWSPAPERS

Each week, over 38 million people read a local newspapers in the UK, meaning it is the most read print medium in the UK. From this figure, about 16 million adults read their local newspaper but not any national newspaper. This shows that there are a lot of people who do not have the time or money to buy local and national newspapers, so they only read their local one. To choose from, the 38 million people have a selection of around 1,200 local newspapers and 1,400 affiliated websites to get information and local news from.

Interestingly, 67.8% of 15-24 year olds read their local newspaper. This defies the stereotype of older people being the main consumer of this type of media and shows that producers, writers and editors need to think hard about the stories they run and the way they write them.

All data from BMRB/TGI marketing and media surveys and http://www.newspapersoc.org.uk/sites/default/files/PDF/the-wanted-ads-top-ten-facts.pdf